Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is allowing U.S. funds to flow to the West Bank and Gaza despite a hold by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a rare display of executive-branch authority that angered the key lawmaker concerned about protecting her congressional oversight role.

A State Department official said that a letter was delivered on Tuesday to key members of Congress informing them of Clinton’s decision to move forward with the $147 million package of the fiscal year 2011 economic support funds for the Palestinian people, despite Ros-Lehtinen’s hold. Administrations generally do not disburse funding over the objections of lawmakers on relevant committees.

The funds deliver “critical support to the Palestinian people and those leaders seeking to combat extremism within their society and build a more stable future. Without funding, our programs risk cancellation,” the official, who was not authorized to speak about the issue, said in an e-mail. “Such an occurrence would undermine the progress that has been made in recent years in building Palestinian institutions and improving stability, security, and economic prospects, which benefits Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

Ros-Lehtinen is of course raising a stink about this — that is, when she isn’t joining the call of her fellow Little Havanans to execute Ozzie Guillen. Too bad, so sad. This aid was already voted on and approved, and a hold is nothing more than pettiness at this point.

Like this:

From TBogg, we find that conservatives are screeching at Hilary Rosen for telling the truth about Ann Romney. To wit:

“What you have is, Mitt Romney running around the country saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.’ Guess what: his wife has never really worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kind of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.”

As TBogg says:

Ann Romney came from very comfortable circumstances, married into a wealthy family, and has never had to worry about having to leave the house to work precisely because her husband made a career of purchasing businesses, stripping them of their assets, and putting the employees out of work in return for exorbitant fees for a job well done. Ann Romney was diagnosed with MS when her sons were 28, 27, 24, 21, and 16 and she was diagnosed with breast cancer ten years later when the boys had presumably moved out and started families and careers on their own, no doubt trading on the family name and connections. And Ann Romney was afforded the best medical care available for her terrible illnesses because her husband made all of that money putting people out of work and undoubtedly many of those same people who lost their livelihoods also lost whatever meager health benefits they might have had when the plant closed down, the pensions were looted and, in some cases, the town died.

Yes, it’s pure fantasy on my part to imagine that anyone will actually face jail time for wiretapping. Otherwise we’d have to put the entire government, including many police departments in jail. But Rupert might have to defer a media acquisition or something.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is poised to bring the battle for legal redress across the Atlantic and to the doorstep of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
…
Details remain sketchy about precisely what Lewis intends to do in the US, but the Guardian has learned that he will be having legal discussions that could lead to several lawsuits being lodged with the New York courts.
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Lewis will be in discussions with his New York-based legal partner, Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, over the details of US law as it applies to phone hacking.